The Cultural Collections team here at the museum looks after both ethnographical and archaeological material from cultures all over the world. Our Indigenous Australian collection holds approximately 40,000 ethnographic objects and one million archaeological artefacts representing the cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The Pacific collections we look after comprises roughly 60.000 cultural objects.

I am often asked about what the Museum's live animals are fed. People are often curious about what we feed our Python, and when I inform them that he recieves an adult rat every two to four weeks the next question is; "do you feed him a live rat?" the answer can require some explaination.

Most Acropora species at Lizard Island spawned on the night of 25 November this year, the third night after the full moon. On the following night, many goniasterid and favid corals spawned, and on the night after that it was the turn of Porites corals.

When a natural disaster strikes children, little children under the age of five are most at risk. Children in developing countries and those at war already have a difficult time and when a natural disaster occurs it just adds to their problems.